A. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of solar panel energy systems and furnaces and furnace systems for providing forced air heating and cooling and providing hot water, and particularly for providing forced air heating and cooling and on-demand domestic hot water in conventional single family homes and in other buildings and environments.
B. Prior Art-Patent References
Prior art patents of interest include U.S. Patent Numbers listed below, these patents being incorporated herein by reference to disclose relevant prior art.
4,125,15111/1978Hays, et al.4,171,77210/1979Hays, et al.4,274,581 6/1981Hays, et al.4,293,09310/1981Raymond4,796,437 1/1989James4,798,240 1/1989Gerstmannetal5,074,46412/1991Moore, Jr., et al.5,239,838 8/1993Tressler5,305,614 4/1994Gilles5,351,50210/1994Gillesetal6,347,527 2/2002Bailey. et al.6,739,139 5/2004Solomon
C. Prior Art-Heating, Cooling and Hot Water Systems
Conventional home heating ventilating, air conditioning (HVAC) and hot water systems use fossil fuel furnaces, electrical resistance heaters and combinations of same. For such conventional furnaces which use combustible fuels to produce hot water and heated air for a home fossil fuels, notably oil, have been experiencing dramatically increased costs. Furthermore, these furnaces operate in an energy wasteful manner. One aspect of this wasted energy occurs because a typical gas or oil-fired water heater stores between 40-100 gallons of hot water at 140° F. for 24 hours a day for an average home, while the home uses the hot water for less then one hour per day. Further undesirable aspects are: (a) that firing oil, propane or natural gas to heat homes releases harmful carbon monoxide and other pollutants into the environment, (b) much of the heat generated by the fuel rises up the chimney or flue and is wasted into outdoor air, and (c) the wasted heat adds to global warming.
Due to this increase in fossil fuel prices, in addition to an increase in overall electric consumption placing a toll on the power grids, and the general inefficiencies of these systems, there has been a major interest in alternative methods and more efficient techniques of heating and cooling a house.
One of the best known approaches seeking to conserve energy and cost is to use an on-demand tankless or flash hot water heater, which heats only the water being used at the time of the demand and thus has no water storage tank and no cost to heat or maintain heated a large quantity of stored water. However, such tankless hot water heaters still require heat from fossil fuel or from electricity, with the usual waste and efficiencies. Another prior art system uses an air handler with a hot water coil; however, this technique uses hot water produced by an oil or gas fired boiler to be fed through a coil to produce hot air, with the previously described waste in energy during the heating cycle.
Also known in the prior art are combined heating and cooling systems in which a warm air furnace has associated with it an air conditioning system having a cooling coil placed in the air duct. However, such systems are essentially two complete systems, a hot air heater which is relatively large and bulky and a cooling coil from an independent cooling system.
It is also known to combine a refrigeration system and hot water heating system to affect a transference of heat energy therebetween. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,093 (“the '093 patent”), discloses a refrigerant system and hot water heating arrangement, wherein the superheat of the refrigerant is rejected to water to be heated, such that this heat energy may be utilized to provide hot water. In effect, the '093 patent teaches the capturing of waste heat from a refrigerant and the subsequent use of the heat for a useful intended purpose. However these techniques, as well as heat pumps employed to heat water, use liquid-to-liquid heat exchangers, as described in FIG. 8 and FIG. 11 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,437 (“the '437 patent”). These methods also involve storing the water with the inherent loss of energy in such storage systems.
Tankless or on-demand unlimited domestic hot water systems have been limited to utilizing resistance electric or fossil fuels for the primary source of energy. While this technique saves considerable cost associated with producing domestic hot water by not having to store the heated water and absorbing the energy loss related to that method, it still requires traditional heat input with traditional inefficiencies.